Breakout (1975 film)
| runtime = 96 minutes | country = United States | language = English | gross = $16,000,000 }} Breakout is a 1975 action film from Columbia Pictures starring Charles Bronson, Jill Ireland, Robert Duvall, John Huston, Sheree North and Randy Quaid. Bronson and Ireland, the lead actor and actress, were married in real life. The film is notable for giving the usually serious Bronson a more comedic, lighthearted role.thetelltalemind.com Bronson Cracks a Smile March 16, 2014 Retrieved July 17, 2015 Synopsis Harris Wagner (Huston) frames Jay Wagner (Duvall). In order to keep him silent, Jay is incarcerated in a Mexican prison. Jay's wife Ann (Ireland) is unhappy at this turn of events and hires a Texas bush pilot in Brownsville, Texas, Nick Colton (Bronson) and his partner Hawk (Quaid), to fly into the prison and rescue her husband. The first attempts don't work, so Colton quickly learns how to pilot a helicopter.sonymoviechannel.com Retrieved July 17, 2015 While Hawk and accomplice Myrna (North) feign a rape to distract the prison guards, Colton pilots a helicopter into the prison complex, Wagner boards the helicopter, and they escape. The group (Colton, Hawk, Myrna, Wagner) return to Texas in a four-passenger light aircraft. Alerted to the escape, Harris Wagner orders his agent Cable (Mantee) to Texas to intercept the group. Cable, driving a Citroën SM with Washington, D.C. license plates, locates Ann Wagner and follows her Chevrolet Impala convertible, knowing she will lead him to Jay Wagner. Cable uses false identification to lure Jay Wagner away from the group when they land. Cable nearly succeeds in kidnapping Wagner, but Colton becomes suspicious and pursues them. The film ends with a runway incursion as Cable and Colton fight among departing airplanes at Brownsville Airport.http://www.athensbooksblog.com/breakout-movie-review/ athensbooksblog.com Breakout Movie Review Retrieved July 17, 2015 Cast * Charles Bronson as Nick Colton * Robert Duvall as Jay Wagner * Jill Ireland as Ann Wagner * John Huston as Harris Wagner * Randy Quaid as Hawk Hawkins * Sheree North as Myrna * Alejandro Rey as Sanchez * Emilio Fernández as J.V. * Paul Mantee as Cable * Alan Vint as Harve * Roy Jenson as Sheriff Spencer Actual event The film was loosely based on an actual event that took place in August, 1971.http://scopophiliamovieblog.com/2013/03/29/breakout-1975/ scopophiliamovieblog.com March 29, 2013 Retrieved July 17, 2015 In a plan hatched by San Francisco attorney Vasilios Basil "Bill" Choulos (1928–2003), a pilot, Vic Stadler, flew a Bell helicopter with its bottom painted in colors similar to that of the Mexican attorney general's into Mexico City's Santa Maria Acatitla prison and assisted a prisoner in a daring escape.Constatine, Alex The CIA, the JM Kaplan Fund & a 1971 Prison Breakout in Mexico March 16, 2010 That prisoner, New York businessman Joel David Kaplan, claimed to have been framed for murder and had been serving a 28-year sentence since 1962. A Venezuelan prisoner, Carlos Antonio Contreras Castro, escaped along with Kaplan. Unlike in the film, there was no rape distraction, no shots were fired and there was no pursuit by Mexican law enforcement. Production The prison scenes were filmed at Fort de Bellegarde, France. Mexico would not participate in portraying this event. Romani people (also known as gypsies) local to Southern France stood in for many of the Mexicans.https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072737/trivia?ref_=tt_trv_trv Actor Robert Duvall became interested in the gypsy culture whilst working with gypsy extras on the set of this movie. Duvall drew on this experience as a writer-director when he later made the film Angelo My Love (1983) about eight years later. The film featured a French Aérospatiale Alouette II turbine helicopter in place of an American Bell Helicopter. Reception The film earned $7.5 million in North American theatrical rentals, and was distributed internationally."All-time Film Rental Champs", Variety, 7 January 1976 p 44 Part of its box-office success was due to the then-novel strategy of "saturation booking", in which Columbia released 1300 prints simultaneously, combined with a heavy advertising campaign on the opening week. This was one of the first major studio films to use this method of release. Inspired by the success of Breakout, Universal Pictures used the same technique to promote Jaws. After Jaws became the highest-grossing movie of all time, saturation booking became the standard method of releasing major films.Wyatt, Justin (1998). "From Roadshowing to Saturation Release: Majors, Independents, and Marketing/Distribution Innovations". In Lewis, Jon. The New American Cinema. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press. , p 78 See also * List of American films of 1975 * List of helicopter prison escapes References External links * * * [http://www.imfdb.org/wiki/Breakout Breakout at Internet Movie Firearms Database (film clips)] * Category:1975 films Category:1970s action thriller films Category:American action thriller films Category:American films Category:American aviation films Category:English-language films Category:Films about miscarriage of justice Category:Films scored by Jerry Goldsmith Category:Films directed by Tom Gries Category:Films set in Mexico Category:Films produced by Robert Chartoff Category:Films produced by Irwin Winkler Category:Mexican escapees Category:Escapees from Mexican detention Category:Columbia Pictures films